Shards of Ever After: Loneliness
by equitablyinjust
Summary: Because their lives are still subject to the story and the pieces of a heart run deep. Ahiru knows that everyone got their happy ending, but four hours a day with Fakir doesn't seem much with twenty hours alone.


_Shards of Ever After: Loneliness_

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As ever, she remembered very little of her life before the story. Of the time – it was _real_, wasn't it? – before Fakir and Mytho and Rue and Piké and Lillié and ballet and _The Prince and The Raven_. But it had to have happened, because she was a duck now, wasn't she? And even as it seemed logic got harder and harder to access, she could work _that much_ out. A byproduct of really being a duck, Ahiru supposed. Her human mind might, over time, become vestigial and simply vanish, overcome by the instincts of her body. Sometimes the terror of losing herself overcame her, seizing her tiny chest in a vicelike grip and leaving her staring, glassy-eyed, across the water.

Not that she'd let Fakir see that. He tried so hard, Ahiru knew, both in the past and present. Trying to protect Mytho from the very beginning, unselfishly becoming the knight, even though he knew he was fated to die, driving a knife through his own _hand_ to protect the happy ending. (It never occurred to her that she might be what he was trying to protect, and if it had, she'd have blushed horribly and berated herself for such silly thoughts. _What would Fakir say? He'd just call me an idiot, of course!_) So Ahiru let herself fear and cry and worry when Fakir _wasn't_ around.

Those times weren't hard to find. In fact, they presented themselves for, at minimum, eighteen hours a day. Logically (the part of her brain getting just a bit fuzzier every day), Ahiru knew Fakir had to go to school. Had to practice ballet and keep learning and sleep, he had to sleep. And he needed time to eat, of course! There were a lot of demands on a human's time, demands she didn't have to hold herself accountable anymore.

Really, all she could do was be grateful. Because every day, for at least an hour, Fakir came out and sat with her. Often, he brought his homework. Drosselmeyer's stories. Always Lohengrin. She quacked in alarm upon first seeing _that_. Fakir's role as a knight was meant to be over when he picked up a pen and declared himself a writer. But he'd been gentle about it, his amused smirk helping to quell her embarrassment when, on reflex, she tried to gag the duck noise. But the threat of inopportune transformation no longer existed. Patiently, he explained that the sword was there in case he needed to defend himself from the Book-keepers. Best of all, he didn't talk to her like a child. At least, no more than he had when she was a girl.

So Ahiru told herself they'd been lucky. Fakir kept his promise, never to leave her – and however long was a long time for _anyone_, even someone as patient as Fakir, to keep visiting a _duck. _The first thing she lost, after all, was her sense of 'd ended the story, averted the tragedy Drosselmeyer fought so hard to preserve. Everyone returned to his or her true self, everyone worked hard to get this happy ending.

But still. She woke up around seven thirty in the morning, often starting out of her nest with the horrible fear that she was going to be late. Of course, there was nothing to be late to. And then – what? Ahiru knew her pond and the surrounding woods perfectly by then. For a duck with a girl's mind and no issue surviving, entertainment ran thin, and she often found herself bored, floating around totally alone, telling herself that Fakir would return soon. And he'd tell her about his day and how Piké and Lillié were doing en pointe and then he'd do his homework, but that would be all right because at least he was _there_.

In a way, it was kind of ironic. It was irony, right? Those were the lessons that had once jete–d over Ahiru's head. Literary terms, or whatever. Confusing and not that interesting. Anyway. It was ironic, because she'd ended where she begun. Floating there.

Once upon a time, Ahiru knew, though she didn't remember it very well, she'd drifted along that same pond, between those same reeds, and seen only sadness in Mytho's eyes. The beautiful prince, dancing with a grace that could break her heart and the empty eyes that did. And because she wished she could help him, they all ended up how they did and, ostensibly, happier for it. Certainly better. Of all people (or ducks, really), Ahiru knew the damaging potential for stories. She wouldn't trade her world without Drosselmeyer as god for anything, not even the chance to be a girl again.

Nonetheless, she missed it. Talking and laughing and dancing and going to see Fakir and even him yelling at her (though admittedly, she still got _that_ some). She missed _friends_. She missed Fakir. Every day, a little yellow duck floated along the surface of her pond, and every day, a dark-haired dancer/writer/ex-knight came to see her, to talk to her and feed her (_This is way better for you than _bread_ all the time_) and sit by her and write and read aloud so she could hear. But at most, that could be for four hours of the day. And four hours of the day wasn't much when she had to spend the other twenty alone.

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_A/N: So, as you can see_, _these are going to be independently articulated storie_s, _as they can both be read sequentially and stand alone. Thank you for reading, as ever! Next, sorrow._


End file.
